Monday, March 22, 2004
eLearning Questions in the EU."Companies are asking far more penetrating questions about their training. What do corporate universities and e-learning add to the bottom line and can the large investments in them be justified?" Exactly. New learning models are under scrutiny - Linda Anderson, UK Financial Times. What a difference a decade makes. Ten years ago fledgling corporate universities were just beginning to spread their wings, with often just one committed individual championing their cause. E-learning was still in its infancy, with technology and expe [Online Learning Update] 9:23:18 AM 
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The Trouble With Objects.This looks like a great description of the battle between "teachers" and "technologists": two professions separated by a common language. And of course it's also the same battle learning technologists have with managers. -- BB Faculty Development and Learning Object Technology by Patricia Ploetz. I saw this paper referenced in DistanceEducator.com's March 3, 2004 Daily News release. The author's experiences match my own; the subtitle of her paper is "Bridging the Gap." There is a very wide gap between instructional technologists' understanding and acceptance of learning objects and the understanding and acceptance that regular faculty have about these endeavors. The gap is even wider in smaller institutions that have little in the way of instructional support services. One reason that I've kept the EduResources Portal and the EduResources Weblog expanded to sites and contents beyond learning objects is that most faculty are much more receptive to courses and lesson as shareable units than to learning objects as units. JH _______ "The following paper begins with a story, the story of a lived experience that illustrates the mismatch between faculty and technology experts' understandings of learning object technology. It then takes a look at faculty perspectives, to show that moving from the traditional approach in content creation to developing learning objects requires a paradigm shift for faculty content developers. Recognizing the changes that faculty face, and understanding their insights regarding new learning technologies, gives faculty support staff an opportunity to "put on" the faculty perspective. This "putting on" activity provides technical support staff with the mental models necessary to support faculty in "bridging the gap" between traditional content development activities and the creation and development of learning object technologies." "In my experience, when faculty speak about developing educational content, they traditionally use the following terms to describe the teaching/learning environment: courses, units, lessons, lectures, readings, projects, and/or activities. Terms such as learning objects, metadata, reusability, interoperability, accessibility, granularity, durability, and economy, while meaningful in a technological arena, often have little if any meaning for faculty. When I have asked, "What do these terms mean to you?" faculty responses have included: "They make me feel like I'm in Dilbert land" or "Are we talking about education? These don't sound like education terms, or at least not ones that I'm familiar with" and "They sound like buzz words that will soon give way to new buzz words." While I admit to talking with a limited number of faculty, I sense that these responses are more representative than not, of many faculty in higher education." [EduResources Weblog--Higher Education Resources Online] 9:16:53 AM
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Last update: 10/8/2005; 1:04:43 PM .
